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Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, tells Italian newspaper La Repubblica on September 1, 2014, that Russian president Putin made some abnormal remarks in a phone conversation. Responding to Barroso's question about whether Russian troops had crossed into eastern Ukraine, Putin is reported to say: "That is not the question... But if I wanted to, I could take Kiev in two weeks." The WSJ editorial on September 3 referred to an earlier editorial on "Putin Bonaparte," giving some idea of how such comments by Putin are seen in the media, and how Putin's actions in Ukraine are creating new tensions with the NATO alliance and the U.S.

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Birthright Citizenship Case at the Supreme Court of the US.- Arguments live from Courtroom at SCOTUS. History shows that much of the 19th and 20th century was spent keeping Asians out of the US, even the Chinese who built the railroads. One of the Chinese whose parents came to the US Wong Kim asked to stay and the Supreme Court ruled in that individual and single isolated case in 1898 that he could stay. Only after JFK and LBJ was immigration gradually opened to Chinese and Indians and Asians in general. By the end of the 20th century this went to the other extreme from no Asians allowed to birthright citizenship for Asian mothers to obtain citizenship in this way just by arriving in New York, clearly with no justification. Even Britain abandoned this idea of birthright citizenship in 1981,  with parentage required uder a new law, one parent citizenship required, 10 years of residence required. Even this relevant fact was not cited by the Solicitor General of the US when he presented the case to the Court in opening summary on April 1, 2026. With Britain removing itself from this practice, it makes no sense to practice birthright citizenship as there is such thing as the Republican view of this- it is the universal view now of all civilized modern nations. With one or two exceptions for unique reasons ( a largely unpopulated country) such as Canada, which may also amend this law. The fact that Asians were not allowed for a century even after some "coolies" built the railroads in the US does not mean it is now time to go to the other extreme to welcome all who come even under the most egregious means. Asians themselves will recognize and support this, now that the "coolie" culture and colonialism is long gone and Asians are part of the fabric of this country. None of this will be mentioned at the Supreme Court just esoteric argument around what a term was accidentally inserted in the case for the one Chinese admitted under that case in 1898 - "Under the jurisdiction thereof." And lawyers will argue around technical points, one more reason for the public disbelief in the SCOTUS. Yet most Asians can be grateful for the process initiated by JFK and LBJ that opened up lawful immigration to the US for Asians, and have the curiosity and eagerness to learn the history of this new Nation and its boundless energies that reshaped our world, to learn about its European heritage and cultures, not ask for more such as birthright citizenship. ...

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To get an idea of Indian potential growth rate one can see the potential of states like Bihar and Maharashtra. Bihar state in India is where the potential for economic development is huge and growth rate of 22% for 2025-2026. Imagine a state with 130 million people in India with about 17% urbanization compared to 37% for India. Most of the development concentrated in the capital city of Patna. Other cities being Gaya near Bodh Gaya, home of the world's most important ancient Buddhist sites where Lord Buddha spent most of his life, and Bhagalpur.  The new plan is to accelerate urbanization in Bihar. After Pataliputra and Kankarbagh 11 new satellite cities are to be set up under an new plan for Bihar. Housing Minister Nitin Nabin of Bihar state says- “The new townships will include nine divisional headquarters cities, Sonepur and Sitamarhi (Sitapuram). The initiative will reduce population pressure on major cities, ensuring better basic infrastructure and scope for further expansion. Special emphasis will be laid on roads, traffic management, drainage, waste disposal, green parks, and residential areas. The nine divisional headquarters were Patna, Muzaffarpur, Bhagalpur, Gaya, Darbhanga, Munger, Saran, Saharsa and Purnia. Committees will be formed to monitor the townships’ overall development." ...

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Stiff competition from Toyota, Honda and Hyundai in the minivan segment. GM and Ford exit this segment. Chrysler is trying seats that face each other, one child can watch a dvd and another play a videogame, placing a table 2 backrows of seats, and so forth family friendly changes in the new Dodge Caravan and Town and Country. But Chrysler sales are't doing so well to retail customers Of 211,0000 sales volume sales to retail of Dodge Caravan are about 126,000 compared to Honda Odyssey at 180,000 and then Toyota Sienna.

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The US president DJT said today Feb. 13, 2025, as he introduced the new Health Secretary of the US-  "There's something wrong, and I think it's it's something that can be found out. In 2022, more than 40% of children had at least one chronic health condition, and today, nearly 80% of young adults do not qualify for military service in large part for health reasons. We're, ah, think of that 80%. Something is wrong and that's why immediately after Bobby is sworn in, I will be signing an Executive Order establishing the President's Commission To Make America Healthy Again. We have some great people on that commission chaired by our new secretary. This groundbreaking breaking commission will be charged with investigating what is causing The decades long increase in chronic illness, reporting its findings and delivering an action plan to the American people, and it's going to be a plan that people are really waiting to hear. Bobby, ah, I want to thank you. You've gone through a lot. It's taken great courage. You've been amazing actually. I'd call him and say, You're gonna be OK. And he said, I know, I really do. "Perhaps most importantly though, Bobby created a nationwide movement made up of millions and millions of mothers and fathers and young people and concerned citizens of every background who want to end this horrible chronic disease crisis that exists, exists in America. He's absolutely committed to getting dangerous chemicals out of our environment and out of our food supply and getting the American people the facts and the answers that we deserve after years in which our public health system has squandered the trust of our citizens, and they really have, they didn't, they don't trust us. They don't trust anybody, frankly they've gone through hell. There's no better person to lead our campaign of historic reforms and restore faith in American health care, and Bobby's going to do it. The United States spends more money in health than any other country on Earth, but we're growing sicker every year. We're not as healthy as countries that spend just a fraction of what we spend, so there's something wrong. He's going to figure it out. In recent decades we've seen staggering increases in cancer rates across all age demographics, including more than 40% increase in childhood cancer since 1975. Who can believe that? And an explosion in other chronic childhood illnesses not long ago, 1 in 10,000 people, children had autism. Now it's 1 in 36. Think of that 1 in 10,000, 1 in 10,000. Now it's 1 in 36. Who can believe that there's something wrong. There's something wrong, and I think it's it's something that can be found out. In 2022, more than 40% of children had at least one chronic health condition, and today, nearly 80% of young adults do not qualify for military service in large part for health reasons. We're, ah, think of that 80%. Something is wrong and that's why immediately after Bobby is sworn in, I will be signing an executive order establishing the president's commission to make America healthy again. We have some great people on that commission chaired by our new secretary. This groundbreaking breaking commission will be charged with investigating what is causing The decades long increase in chronic illness, reporting its findings and delivering an action plan to the American people, and it's going to be a plan that people are really waiting to hear. Bobby, ah, I want to thank you. You've gone through a lot. It's taken great courage. You've been amazing actually. I'd call him and say, You're gonna be OK. And he said, I know, I really do. He's really, ah, been supported amazingly by Cheryl and his family. And it was a very tough. It was a very nasty group of people that were after him, but he was tougher and he was smarter than they are, and that's why he's here today. There are very few people that could have withstood the, ah, the assault, but he was able to." ...

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The view of a Prof. of Finance at New York University's Stern School of Business on the auto industry and the destruction of capital. About $110 billion of destruction of capital between 1980 and 1990 for GM and Ford, and the destruction of $182 billion in capital that was invested in GM between 1998 and 2007. From a Finance point of view this is society's capital that can be better invested. The total $465 billion invested in GM and Ford between 1998 to 2007 says Yermack could have purchased all the shares of Toyota, Honda, Nissan and VW. The job losses overstate the situation he says, as jobs would be created in other auto factories which expand as Detroit contracts, which is already happening as sales decline is less steep at other automakers such as the Japanese. Regarding the proposals to ask the automakers to build environmentally friendly cars with serious fuel efficiency, he says its like asking the cigarette companies finance cancer research, considering their lobbying efforts to gut serious conservation or environment friendly legislation....

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Soli Ozel, a professor of international relations and political science at Istanbul's Kadir Has University and columnist for Haberturk, Turkish daily newspaper, says the street protests in Turkey resemble the "Green Movement" in Iran of four years ago. Iranian protests were predominantly educated and middle class urbanites, and the same is true in Turkey. The AKP party is likely to continue its control but its legitimacy inside Turkey and in the world is being questioned. The recent elections in Iran resulted in a moderate being elected as Iranian voters rejected the politics of the Ahmadinejad period. Turkey is different in one respect in that it is a democracy with liberal democraic values and the rule of law. He gives credit to the AKP party for making housing, health care and education more accessible to the rural areas of Turkey and broadening its middle class. Voters are likely to reject the authoritarian tendencies of the Erdogan government and its sense that the majority simply prevails without a respect for the views of the opposition and other opinion essential for the functioning of democracy. Economic conditions have hurt the middle class and all segments of society in Iran after international sanctions. In Turkey changing economic conditions after an unsustainable credit boom based economic expansion could also play a part. Ultimately says Ozel this is about the Turkish identity as a modern state based on liberal democratic values....

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Steven Rattner, was areporter for the New York Times covering the Chrysler rescue in 1970. He is now a key person on President Obama's task force for the auto industry, looking at the rescue of GM and Chrysler 39 years later. After working as a reporter for the NYT, he worked at Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley, eventually starting his own privae equity firm Quadrangle. He is an important fundraiser for the Democratic party, and for Presidents Clinton and Obama. In his current position as counsellor at the Treasury, the Obama administration can use Rattner's expertise as an investment expert and his finacial savy for issues beyond the auto industry. The President decided against a car czar as he wanted to be involved in understanding and making decisions for the auto industry, which may be wise considering the importance of these decisions, and considering that this would take advantage of a number of talented people on the task force with different expertise. Rattner ses the relevance of his expertise in investing, as the decisions for GM and Chrysler can be seen as investment decisions for the government, and under what circumstances and conditions can the government make a good investment in these companies. ...

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Is the Volt an idea vehicle that will be produced on a very small scale too small to have any impact in the car buying scene or worse still an idea vehicle that is ways off a prototype stage or is it something more serious? The battery is a critcal part of this. Toyota worked with Matsushita and Toshiba to develop its battery for the hybrids. GM needs some highly capable partners with large R&D budgets to come up with a suitable battery for the Volt but little information on this is available or GM has not really thought this part through yet.

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Experimental tryouts of new media by GE and Hewlett Packard. How does this relate to what Automakers are doing to reach younger demographics?

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Raul Castro of Cuba indicted by the US Justice Department May 20, 2026 for Cuban Americans killed when civilian flights helping Cuban refugees in the waters near Cuba were shot on orders from Raul Castro, as minister of defense. Only towards the end of this news report by Perry Stein and Karen De Young of the Washington Post is it clear that this indictment is on Cuba Independence Day March 20, which in 1902 marks the setup of the Republic of Cuba, at the end of the US military takeover of Cuba from the Spanish during the Spanish American War. Cuba under Castro does not use this day but the day of the Communist takeover in 1959 of January 1, and celebrates as Day of the Revolution, July 26, the day when the attack on the Moncada military barracks started the Revolution against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Only the Obama administration similar to its failures in addressing the Iran nuclear weapons crisis refused to recognize 1902 date as the Cuban Independence Day, all other administrations before did. Under the Monroe Doctrine of 1824 the US clearly considered Latin America as its neighborhood and would not accept any foreign power in its neighborhood, making the Platt amendment attached to the Cuban 1902 Constitution permitting US intervention simply an addition. That the Monroe Doctrine was proven right in 2 ways is not mentioned by the Washington Post or by the elite media. What it did was to prevent European colonial powers from intervening and restoring colonial type rule to Spanish colonies in Latin America. It was welcomed by the British as it had no such designs, objected to by the Spanish Dutch and the French who had such designs for their colonial Empires. It was resented by Cubans naturally but Cubans did not consider that US is the only power who even when it pushed the Spaniards out of Cuba and Philippines in the Spanish American War of 1900 after centuries of Spanish occupation, the only power who prepared Cuba for Independence within 4 years in 1898. Which European colonial power could do this? The other reason for the Monroe Doctrine is in the Platt Amendment attached to the Cuban Constitution which committed the Cuban government to implement and maintain programs the US introduced to control yellow fever and infectious diseases. In 1934 FDR removed the Platt Amendment under a "Good Neighbor Policy. It is the relaxation of the Monroe Doctrine by future American adminstrations that has brought so much suffering and pain to North America, for the US and Mexico with illegal immigration and drugs, corrupting governance in Mexico and creating social political strife in the US, more deaths from drugs than the Vietnam, Korean and WWI combined. Today's Cuba's economy and the Venezuelan economy that copied Cuba's example has completely collapsed, one fourth of the people left the country taking with them the vitally important skills, and leading to economic hardships for the people. This would not have happened if the Monroe Doctrine implemented under the Good Neighbor ideas of FDR and the Alliance for Progress of JFK was kept in place. This shows that Cuba's Independence happened when the Americans supported Cuban rebels fighting for independence in 1898 just as the Indian Independence was won in 1947 from the British under Labour's PM Clement Attlee in 1945 taking action. Four years of American rule in Cuba to prepare it for independence as a transition is far better than 4 centuries of Spanish rule, and 2 years of British rule as a transition 1945-1947 under Attlee (who replaced Churchill in 1945 and setup the NHS) is better than 2 centuries of British colonial rule. In this sense America is with the Cuban people, just as the average British public and working class is with the Indian people.   ...

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The higher risks of stress, loneliness and exhaustion during the coronavirus for office workers. Britain's BUPA offers some advice on how to handle this with other workers so that mental wellbeing is preserved.

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Let sleeping tariffs lie is the approach of S. Korea, Taiwan, Japan, China, India, European Union, Germany, UK-  expect all trade agreements with the US to remain in place after Supreme Court decision as no country wants to go through the intensely difficult process of renegotiating on tariffs. It is also the case that DJT can replace these same tariffs using other tools and different legislation passed by Congress to stop unfair trading practices by other nations. The president is also appealing to the public, some of the tariffs are about fentanyl flows into the US, the unfair trade practices and subsidies were a problem for the Biden administration and rebuilding manufacturing was the goal of both DJT and Biden, and will be for future administrations.  When the media NYT, Washington Post respond they are following the editorial line taken that opposes the DJT administration on all issues, when WSJ respond it takes the textbook approach of economists and finance people that free markets are best without considering the real life issues. This is why the president said at his press conference after the Supreme Court decision that 22 Nobel Prize economists had said the economy could not be turned around for growth and low inflation in 1 year, and were proved wrong after the experience of 2025 with low inflation at 2.8%, low unemployment 4.3%, and growth of 2.2% in real GDP (with strong growth in quarters 2&3 of 3.8% and 4.4%). Expect all tariffs to be in place under other legislation to be in place in coming months. ...